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Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Reinhold Niebuhr
Age: 78 †
Born: 1892
Born: June 21
Died: 1971
Died: June 1
Ethicist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Theologian
University Teacher
Wright City
Missouri
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Men
Basis
Life
Rational
Bases
Deeply
Virtue
Impulses
Moral
Sole
Social
Rooted
Reason
Impulse

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.
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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
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We misjudge anybody who's different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That's their chief offense, but there are particular causes.
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The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
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If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
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Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.
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The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
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We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.
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Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point it's a rather vapid form of religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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There has been a religious revival because - let me put it like this, the people that weren't traditionally religious, conventionally religious, had a religion of their own in my youth. These were liberals who believed in the idea of progress or they were Marxists. Both of these secular religions have broken down.
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To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts.
Reinhold Niebuhr